So what should one do (in So. Calif.) if he is tempted beyond the ability to resist into purchasing them in mid-spring at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden (RSABG) plant sale? I cannot get them to survive in their pots until the autumn. However, the ones sold in the autumn sale don't have flowers on them, so I don't know what they will look like when then bloom. Some of the ones that are blooming at the spring plant sales are are so exquisitely beautiful, with jaw-dropping combinations of almost jewel-like colors, that I have never been able to resist buying at least one--even though they're not cheap, and even if I only get to enjoy the flowers for that season only. They all seem to be grown in the Monterey Bay area which almost never gets hot in the summer. And yet RSABG has large beds of them thriving all over the place under trees in their gardens.
I'm not as interested in the solid colored ones. But some of the ones I've seen with deep vivid violet with whiskers of bronze and and yellow and sky blue highlights, or a jewel-like orchid with bright yellow centers and petal edges that shade to either a lighter or darker orchid, or bronze, yellow, and brown with a hint of lavender, I feel like my eyes are going to fall out of my head when I see them. I would so love to get them to grow for me.
--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a
Latitude 34°N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m